When will I pull the kids from school. - Probably when other schools nearby start shutting down. With the last Swine flu breakout, there was some schools shutdown in my area, and my kids school was closed for a long weekend, well before it really looked like a threat, which it wasn't. I may beat them too the punch, but knowing nervous school districts that close school with 4" of snow on the ground and a bunch of hyper nervous parents, they will probably give the kids the boot before I start to ponder the decision.

Full pandemic, off the streets, and staying indoors again I think it will be a no brainer. The plug will be pulled on outside contact, when it gets ugly. I'm thinking when news pundits, politicians and health authorities suggest staying inside, it will just be starting to get ugly anyway

I'm not a germ freak, but I usully take basic precautions during cold and flu season. Washing hands regularly, avoiding hand to face touching, hand santizing gel in the pocket, personal space gets extended a bit. Even with just word of a possible pandemic flu in the news (see my last post) these habits get an uptick if the news gets worse.

I figure a pandemic is one of the more likely SHTF scenarios and it one of the most important to have good solid preps for. After all, you will be hunkering down and bugging out probably isn't a good option.

As to when, I guess if any cases appear locally anywhere. If you wait until they show up in your local school it may be too late. A 20% mortality rate is high and I would guess quarantines would be in place anyway. Airborne would be way more serious, obviously.

It really depends on how easy it is to catch, 1st exposure to 1st symptom time period, is it during normal flu season, can symptoms be mistaken for common cold or flu & by what vector of transmission..

..25% mortality with a 0.00001% infection rate of those potentially exposed due to direct physical contact of infected mucus/etc with short period incubation with very distinct onset symptoms (total body purple rash for example) outside of flu season..

..is a totally different threat than..

..25% mortality with a 98% infection rate of those exposed by an airborne vector with a 5 to 7 day incubation period with symptoms identical to the flu & during flu season.

The former would be stepped up flu season precautions with basically a normal life otherwise..

.. & the latter would be an immediate isolation of family as soon as initial outbreak was identified in or near any major population center anywhere in the world....possibly sooner.

YMMV

That being said...

A little bit of related fiction....coming to a theater screen near you September 9th...

The pandemic lasted from June 1918 to December 1920,[3] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. Between 50 and 100 million died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.[4][5][6][7][8] Even using the lower estimate of 50 million people, 3% of the world's population (1.86 billion at the time[9]) died of the disease. Some 500 million, or 27% (≈1/4), were infected.[5]
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If 3% of the population died in today's world of 7 billion, that would be 210 million killed and 1.89 billion infected.

Note that no part of the world was unaffected.

There are a few things that will make it worse this time around - more international travel, today's modern communication and 24hr cable fear mongers, just in time inventories and the breakdown of the family will make things worse this time.

Any disease with that kind of mortality rate that goes airborne and I assume with a high transmission rate is going to send me into hiding on day 1 that I hear about it. In the modern world something that deadly will zip around the planet like a herd of zombies and I would get out of the way.

__________________
"Freedom ain't Free" Ted Nugent at the House of Blues in Orlando.

"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms." - Aristotle,

My grandfather died of the Spanish flu. I have researched the epidemic and others.
1. you cannot isolate yourself.
2. with the exception of one island, it covered the whole world.
3. flu comes in 3 year waves. So, you need to get whatever shots become available. For those who don't believe in them, do some research.
4. Joseph Pilates was interned in GB. He taught his exercises to the staff and inmates. No one died. It was a matter of being in good physical shape I would guess. Ignore the bs about young men dying who were soldiers. If you have ever been a gi (ME!)and lived with 40 other guys in one bay in a barracks, you understand that you end up catching every damn illness that the recruits have brought to the army. Kids in Basic Training or the trenches are not in good health.

The pandemic lasted from June 1918 to December 1920,[3] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. Between 50 and 100 million died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.[4][5][6][7][8] Even using the lower estimate of 50 million people, 3% of the world's population (1.86 billion at the time[9]) died of the disease. Some 500 million, or 27% (≈1/4), were infected.[5]
============

If 3% of the population died in today's world of 7 billion, that would be 210 million killed and 1.89 billion infected.

Note that no part of the world was unaffected.

There are a few things that will make it worse this time around - more international travel, today's modern communication and 24hr cable fear mongers, just in time inventories and the breakdown of the family will make things worse this time.

Many more things will make it better...containment, analysis and reaction. Advances in medical science, medical hygiene, synthesis of response vaccine, communications, etc. We have a lot more weapons now on this front.

Any disease with that kind of mortality rate that goes airborne and I assume with a high transmission rate is going to send me into hiding on day 1 that I hear about it. In the modern world something that deadly will zip around the planet like a herd of zombies and I would get out of the way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vic777

Definitely when the first case hits the Nation, if not before.

The problem being is how does one find out,tptb would try ta conceal the threat and contain the panic it'd bring.A national panic would cause 2 things.Spreading the contagion and maybe a sos of suspected carriers.This is the one scenario that scares the beejeebus outta me.'08.

My grandfather died of the Spanish flu. I have researched the epidemic and others.
1. you cannot isolate yourself.
2. with the exception of one island, it covered the whole world.
3. flu comes in 3 year waves. So, you need to get whatever shots become available. For those who don't believe in them, do some research.
4. Joseph Pilates was interned in GB. He taught his exercises to the staff and inmates. No one died. It was a matter of being in good physical shape I would guess. Ignore the bs about young men dying who were soldiers. If you have ever been a gi (ME!)and lived with 40 other guys in one bay in a barracks, you understand that you end up catching every damn illness that the recruits have brought to the army. Kids in Basic Training or the trenches are not in good health.

American Somoa.
I would pull the out at the first real sign...

__________________
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

My grandfather died of the Spanish flu. I have researched the epidemic and others.
1. you cannot isolate yourself.
2. with the exception of one island, it covered the whole world.
3. flu comes in 3 year waves. So, you need to get whatever shots become available. For those who don't believe in them, do some research.
4. Joseph Pilates was interned in GB. He taught his exercises to the staff and inmates. No one died. It was a matter of being in good physical shape I would guess. Ignore the bs about young men dying who were soldiers. If you have ever been a gi (ME!)and lived with 40 other guys in one bay in a barracks, you understand that you end up catching every damn illness that the recruits have brought to the army. Kids in Basic Training or the trenches are not in good health.

Check out Ft Devens in MA where they got desimated by the flu plus the natural stratagey of isolation when the flu was in town was best seen by the mormons in UT. I would isolate myself.

And hey, my grandfather got the spanish flu while he was overseas in the army and the doctor told him one night "Go drink 5 shots of rum, you will either wake up and live or you won't." Crazy, we got lucky and he lived, flu sucks and bird flu is worse.

__________________
"Freedom ain't Free" Ted Nugent at the House of Blues in Orlando.

"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms." - Aristotle,

As LG1 it really depends on the infection rate. Another good point is the .gov may try to downplay how serious it is.

Low infection rate means there's less to worry about.

Given even a moderate infection rate, say 40 percent, Given news that there was an outbreak anywhere in the country, I would be extremely cautious and should there be even mild evidence that it's spreading I would immediately go into full isolation.

With an infection rate of 75 percent in any major city in the world I probably lock the doors and see how it plays out. It's just too easy for diseases to spread from travel these days. Its not hard to have been in 5 major world cities on 3 different continents in 1 week. If there's a 7 day incubation period its not unreasonable that basically the entire world will already be infected.

__________________
It is better to remain silent and appear stupid, then to speak and remove all doubt.